Big-box retailer At Home appears headed for Peachtree

A major piece of the retail puzzle at Peachtree Mall appears to have been solved, with a home furnishings and decor superstore apparently headed for the shopping center on Manchester Expressway in Columbus.

At Home, a privately owned chain of home decor superstores based in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, confirmed Monday it has plans for Columbus, but would not pin down the location. Columbus-area construction contractors say the retailer will be entering Peachtree Mall in the former Parisian department store space bought in November by Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which owns the mall.

“While I can confirm we are looking at sites in the area, at this time it would be premature for me to comment on the potential location in the Peachtree Mall,” Stacey Sullivan, At Home’s director of public relations and corporate communications, said via email. She noted locations are disclosed publicly after documents, such as building permits, are filed with the cities in which they are locating.

Construction work has yet to start on the 86,274-square-foot space left vacant since February 2006 after Charlotte, N.C.-based retailer Belk purchased the 40-store Parisian chain, rebranding some locations to Belk and closing a dozen others, including the one in Columbus. Belk turned around and sold the vacant Columbus space about a year later to Little Rock, Ark.-based Dillard’s for $4.4 million. Dillard’s sat on the property located front and center at the mall until selling it to General Growth Properties just before Thanksgiving last year for $2 million, according to city real-estate filings.

The transaction had been in negotiations for many months. Peachtree Mall general manager Onassis Burress, who has been on the job here since February, declined Monday to comment on whether or not At Home is taking the prime spot at the 809,563-square-foot shopping center. It would become the fourth anchor at the mall, joining Dillard’s, JCPenney and Macy’s.

The mall did conduct an auction last week of the remnants from the Parisian store, including shelves, racks and other items. “Pardon Our Progress” signs were spotted in an area adjacent to the old Parisian space, with a large dumpster outside filled with various junk items.

At Home itself on Friday posted on its online career page a job listing and description for a “store director” in Columbus, seeking a “motivated, enthusiastic rock star who enjoys a fast-paced team environment laced with challenges and opportunities.” The positions needs someone to build, train, develop and motivate a store team, the site said.

At Home would fill a large and glaring hole at Peachtree Mall. There had been speculation that the former Parisian space might be broken into several pieces and become a mix of retail and restaurants. Local readers have had Dave and Busters, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, The Cheesecake Factory and Romano’s Macaroni Grill on their wish lists for some time.

With the home furnishings and decor superstore, the Columbus market will get a growing player in a shopping category that is doing better nationally than the clothing and apparel sector as a whole, with consumers seeking to improve and dress up their homes moreso than themselves, recent corporate earnings reports indicate. At Home touts its “everyday low pricing” selection of more than 50,000 items in its superstores, with furniture and accessories for each room of a house, as well as storage, organization, patio and garden goods. “Any Style, Any Budget, Any Reason to Redecorate” is one of the slogans it uses.

The size of the At Home stores can vary widely. One location that opened in April in Wichita Falls, Texas, measured 92,000 square feet, with three others making their debuts this month in York, Pa., Jackson, Miss., and Dallas-Fort Worth coming in at 110,000 square feet, 128,000 square feet and 137,000 square feet, respectively. The company also has store openings through June in Moore, Okla., Slidell, La., Blaine, Minn., San Antonio, Texas, Rapid City, S.D., and in Plano where it is headquartered.

At Home currently lists Georgia locations in Buford, Douglasville, Kennesaw, Norcross, Snellville, Stockbridge and Warner Robins. In Alabama, there are locations in Birmingham, Hoover and Huntsville. The big-box chain operates more than 100 stores in 28 states. Founded in 1979 as Garden Ridge Pottery, it reorganized and exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2005, then rebranded its stores to At Home in 2014.

Peachtree Mall marked its own 40th anniversary last year, having opened for business in 1975. The shopping center has undergone various remodeling and expansion projects through the years, with retailers coming and going. For instance, Montgomery Ward once was in the space now occupied by Macy’s (originally Rich’s when it first arrived in Columbus). More recently, it added a couple of popular clothing retailers, H&M and Forever 21.

General Growth has owned Peachtree Mall since April 30, 2003, having bought it from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, paying $87.6 million. The shopping center has about 100 tenants, but has not expanded in a major way for years due to space limitations. Vertical construction has not been considered due to the property’s close proximity to Columbus Airport.

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Big-box retailer At Home appears headed for Peachtree."